So it's been too long, but I'm finally working on Road Warrior again. Life happened and I was lazy, not feeling like working on the car. Broke up with my girlfriend over a year ago, moved, got a new car (2017 Mazda 3 Touring), got a promotion, etc etc. Lots of life happened. So here's the near-term plans now:
Fender flares, Wheels and tires, vinyl the car, BMW transmission swap, GM getrag rear diff conversion, adding electric power steering, adding back Air Conditioning (already have the parts). .
I already have the transmission and diff, I went ahead and bought a ATI Pulley Dampener and the fancy Oil Pump (blueprinted?) from Flyin Miata. I plan on pulling the engine/trans and putting all the conversion pieces in, then dropping it all back in. While the engine is out I'll put on the new pulley dampener and oil pump, swap out my cracked oil pan for a good one, and generally clean up the engine bay a bit. All of this is to support the added power I'm planning for next year!
Here's the car 2 summers ago at my old house, note* the duct tape was temporary, intercooler was not yet plumbed in this pic.

 

I did a few panels of vinyl with the help of my buddy Garrett. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

 

When I added back the Air Conditioner pieces to the car, the compressor was in the way of how I routed my intercooler piping, so today I fixed that.
First I cut a giant hole. This whole process was way easier than I thought I was going to be.


And plumbed up some pipes.




Car looks happy to finally have whoosh noises (from the BOV) and an intercooler plumbed up again!

 

Here's a teaser for what's to come

 

Nice start. Which BMW transmission did you use?

 

I chose the Getrag 260 from the E30's. It's laying in my shop floor right now. I think I paid $250 for it from a local yard that already had it pulled. Might've been cheaper ($180?). Definitely not bad.

 

So got BFG Rival S 1.5 (245/40/15) all mounted up on the new wheels. The wheels are JRW Series 500 15x10 +25mm ofset with 54.1 hub bore sizing in color: Satin Bronze. I also picked up the Lug Nuts from Phil's Tire Service as well, they list them as "Open-end cold forged Aluminum 12x1.5 3/4" Hex" titanium color lug nuts. They're super lightweight and look amazing. I coupled these with 949 racing valve stems too.


It's a good thing I'm adding flares to this thing because these are WIIIDE




Mocked up fitment pre-fender cut/flare install


Here's another goodie that I've yet to add but will soon! (Blueprinted FlyinMiata Hubs with ARP studs...these are for the front, my axles from V8 Roadsters for the Getrag diff will include them for the rear as well)

 

I had to make some adjustments to my pre-intercooler piping. I was unhappy with my options on intake setup while still using the AFM for the car, so I clocked the turbo down again, used my custom bracket for the wastegate actuator AGAIN, and used my 180degree intake pipe. Had to cobble a few tubes together to make it work but it should be fine for now. It'll get welded together eventually. Also reinstalled my heat shield.

 

I forgot to show pictures of my LED gauge conversion after swapping my gauges too. Love the way these turned out.

 

A few pics of the car back on the ground. Able to turn the wheel lock to lock with full clearance on everything. I'm curious how much it would actually rub under hard driving (seems like it has room)...but I'll trust what others have said and cut/flare the car anyways.
Also a picture comparison of my old wheel/tire and the new ones.

 

Took the car out for a shakedown run and to get some gas in the tank. Ran great! Intercooler REALLY makes a difference in keeping the torque/power going until redline!
Unfortunately I still spin the right-rear tire all the time (limited slip coming soon). My buddy and I spent a long time getting the car's corner heights perfect a while back, then I had it aligned but it didn't seem to help much.
Also, I'm really surprised my front tires didn't rub this fender at all, I wasn't taking anything at track speeds but I took some good bumps and turns and had no contact at all. I don't have fender liners, I have about -2.5 camber in the front, but I still thought I was going to HAVE to roll the fender to avoid making contact...does anyone know why I didn't have any contact? Am I just not low enough for it to matter? I'm running the "SuperMiataDual Duty Alignment" with a 4.5" pinch weld height which puts most of the subframe about 4" off the ground and lower control arms are basically parallel to the ground.

 

Probably riding on bumpstops and won't compress enough to make contact.

 

I'll look at my coilover again to check, but I'm pretty sure there's travel left in them. Also, since SuperMiata recommends this setup I'd think they would have mentioned that (and that other people would have also run into the issue of riding on bumpstops. It just seemed like everyone was sure that I would destroy fenders with this wheel/tires combo and it's not the case, even with a relatively common setup suspension-wise.
I'm not SAD about it, I'm just kinda kicking myself for dreading this part of the build and the "problems I was going to run into" with it.

I'll double-check shock travel and repost tomorrow! That's something good to check anyways.

 

I measured and it looks like I have 4" of available travel. Don't know if that's amazing or not in the Miata world. If I was a betting man the previous owner whom installed these coilovers did not install bump stops on them (if its possible). I'll have to ask him.

 

I'm planning on vinyling the entire car but I'm also trying an experiment: Differences in adhesion, longevity, and ease of install of the vinyl on surfaces of varying levels of "prep." I've done the trunk which is basically smooth bare metal. The headlight covers are a non-OEM primer. The doors and fender are flaking paint/OEM primer, and the Hood will be the OEM single stage paint. For the Hardtop I've decided to try a very rough paint job myself. Remember, this hardtop has actually flown off of a car while it was driving at one point, had some poorly done repairs from someone else, and now I own it and decided to do some more really poorly done repairs. It looks better than it was, and it's protected now. It's got 3 layers primer, 400-600 grit wet sand. 4 layers color, 4 layers clear. Bad pics for now. I'll take more in the sunlight later.

 

Update on the mystery of the tires not rubbing: They rub now. I suspect the suspension settled a bit after being in the air for a while when I was working on the car and installing the wheels/tires.

Haven't done much on the car in the past few days but I did finally clean out a large part of the shop (which was long overdue) and swept up.

Also got around to marking fender flare holes and cutting the fenders. Went pretty smooth all in all, I did screw up on the front with placement but luckily the correct placement still has the flare cover up the holes I drilled wrong so I got lucky. I cleaned up the edges with a dremel, sanded them so there's no sharp edges, primered for protection, and I'll be adding RTV to the rear arches between the outer and inner fender skin.
I had assumed (incorrectly) that the hardware kit that Fab9 and CarbonMiata offer for their flares would just "install, no big deal." I guess in my head I assumed that the "female" threaded portion (that stays in your fender) was an interference fit...this isn't the case. The RivNuts need a special RivNut gun to install them. I knew this, because I watched a video from Mighty Car Mods (not because either of their websites included that NEEDED information)...I feel like that information should be available on the websites that sell those kits.

So REALLY, the cost of those hardware kits is the price + ~$20-60 for the tool.

Here's the car with the newly painted top. I think it'll have a nice "two-tone" look when it's all in vinyl


And after the fenders were cut and primered

 

Took the car to autocross and spent the day cursing my open diff. Was overall a success since the car made it back home without any issues. The car is loud with no proper exhaust so ear plugs were a precaution that I'm glad I took. Hopefully in the coming month or so I'll finally get my exhaust fabbed up (i've had the parts for it for 2 years).

Flares are finished and turned out good.





And a shot from autocross

 

Minor update: I realized that while I have the engine out I need to do a coolant reroute for it, so I picked up a ton of parts for that. I'm going with a slightly customized "M-Tuned" reroute, I'll post more details on what/why I changed when I actually install that. I also noticed when I was driving the car that it was getting more than 8psi boost, which isn't really what I want. Wideband isn't telling me I'm leaning out so that's good. It's been creeping really close to 11psi (in 3rd and 4th gear) after an initial 9to8 drop...then creep. I thought maybe my actuator wasn't adjusted properly but now I'm starting to think that the replacement actuator I bought is actually an 11psi actuator...I don't know for sure, and I don't have a setup to test properly, but I guess I'll run it for now.

Within the next few months I'll be pulling the engine to do a bunch of work, upgrading the transmission, rear diff, coolant reroute, new fancy oil pump, new oil pan (old one is cracked), new steering rack, electronic power steering, and an adapter for electronic speed sensor on the transmission to my analog gauges (same thing the old muscle car guys use when they upgrade to a modern transmission with an electronic sender).

Only thing to expect between those huge things will be vinyl, so I'll post again when I decide to vinyl some more panels and finish the body work on the bumper!

 

Hey everybody! I'm reviving this thread because I'm the new owner of this car!!

If you're not familiar with Road Warrior, it's a turbo 1.6L that has been through /a lot/





From what I understand, Snow moved and sold the car to one of my friends, Preston, who let it sit behind his dealership for something like two years with a locked up diff. That 1.6L open diff finally had enough and I guess they just parked it rather than do the swap.


road warrior, as i found it



i was pretty skeptical at this point


Rats made nests under the hood and ate some wiring, water got into the trunk, things turned crusty, etc. He also sold the wheels, so it was sitting on blocks. I told Preston I would buy the car for $2500 on the condition that I could get it started up. After some quick work replacing the spark plug wires, coolant, and battery, we got it fired up! I happened to have some extra wheels from my other Miata, so I threw those on as well.



got it started and rolling! (kinda)

Next, I used AAA to tow it to my apartment. I used some of the wrap that came of the car to poorly wrap the fenders and bumper. I spent some time cleaning it up, removing rat's nests, etc. Then, somebody promptly backed into it. Dealing with insurance was a whole thing, but I ended up getting paid out $3000 for the damage. At this point, the car was free! I highly recommend AAA as a side note. One hundred miles of free towing per year is incredibly useful.



clean up



a brief period of looking ok before disaster struck



womp


AAA to the rescue again

Instead of paying the shop to fix the bumper, I'm investing in things to make it run well. First up was swapping the diff (and subframe and driveshaft)

I had AAA tow it to my girlfriend's parent's house and we knocked it out in a weekend.



i happened to have an LSD from another wrecked miata!

me, probably crying because swapping diffs sucks

we swapped the subframe too, since the previous owner said it was bent. i didn't see any bends, but went ahead anyway

My first few drives have been..... exciting.

The turbo immediately set some leaves that gathered under the turbo on fire during the first test drive. We cleaned that up and then on the way home at night, those LED overhead lights also randomly started strobing and flashing 1000 times per second. Combined with the red glow from the gauges it was just complete horror movie vibes. The alignment is bad. It wants to rotate in every corner. There are mysterious smells and smokes at all times. This car WANTS to kill me.

Additionally, the rising rate fuel regulator is no longer rising the rate of the fuel, so I have to stay out of boost. I'm going to try a rebuild kit first and then swap to a standalone if that doesn't solve the issue.




Also, adding to evidence that this car possesses a demon spirit, oil is leaking onto the exhaust and it nearly lit up on my way to work today. There was a LOT of smoke and while investigating I accidentally laid some of my hair across the turbo and it instantly fried. This car hates me already.

Well anyway, thanks for reading! See you next time, when I hopefully have some of the little issues figured out and can start running autocross maybe!

- Mia

 

Glad to see someone working on Road Warrior again! Let me know if you have any questions about it!